Ocean Princess British Isles Cruise Review -Disney Sheep Go Rogue

A Disney Sheep Ocean Princess British Isles Cruise Review

Watch out cruising world, the Disney Sheep are once again on the loose! And this time we are going rogue on an international level and heading out on an 8 night Ocean Princess cruise to Scotland, Ireland, Wales and St Helier, Jersey, also commonly referred to as a British Isles cruise.

The 'us' for this cruise includes me, DH and DS (15) - sadly, DD (17) didn't travel with us, but (happily for her) she was off on her own adventure to Scotland participating in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival - which is part of the reason that we chose this cruise since we got to 'high five' her in Edinburgh!

Twenty fourteen started out as a bit of a tough year for our family. The details don't matter at this point, only that for one reason or another we could not plan our summer vacation as far in advance as we normally do. One of the many issues that messed with our travel planning was the fact that our DD's school theatre group had been invited to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival - and when I say invited, I mean they were invited to pay their own way for the privilege of performing in Edinburgh. But hey, how many teenagers can say they got to perform on stage at the Fringe Festival in Scotland, so we supported her through all of the fund raising and the inherent drama - yes, pun intended. And we waited for the details of her trip to be finalized - or at least for the organization to tell us the details anyway. And we waited some more.

And through all of this I developed one vacation plan after another, and let one plan after another slip away. Ideally we would have preferred a trip for all four of us together somewhere, but with all of the play rehearsals combined with the lack of information being provided in advance that opportunity did not materialize.

One option that we kept revisiting however was a trip that included Scotland. For many reasons we feel an affinity with the British Isles, not the least of which is that DH is of Scottish descent - twice removed. That would be once removed when his great grandparents moved from Scotland to northern England, and then twice removed when his parents moved to Canada. Side note: DD's friends on her trip kept commenting on all of her 'tartan' options :).

As well, although as a family we have visited England twice, with some time spent visiting relatives, most of which was time spent in London and we had not ventured out of England but really wanted to do so. That said, London still remains as one of DS's favourite cities in the world. And on one of those trips, I discovered Diana Gabaldon's Outlander book series while we were poking around in a book store near Piccadilly Circus and I was hooked - on the books and on Scotland since Gabaldon paints such an amazing picture of the country and of its history.

And of course a trip that included Edinburgh would allow us to meet up with DD, and that was the icing on top of the gluten free cake for us. Based on my research I had narrowed my search down to two potential Princess cruises that visited the British Isles during the correct timeframe, and given the time constraints of DD's trip, the Ocean Princess cruise that overnighted in Edinburgh was our best option. We watched as more and more cabins booked up and kept our fingers crossed that we would get the final travel details for DD's trip before all of the cabins were gone!

BACKGROUND: We are a family that loves to cruise. Travel is our main 'vice' and we enjoy visiting different places, which means that ideally we choose cruises based on the itinerary. Our 'sheep-like' tendencies relate to the fact that of 8 family cruises to date, we have taken 7 Disney cruises and we often book our excursions through Disney, as well as our transfers to and from the port.

However when I say that we are 'Disney sheep', I should probably clarify that we have never actually been to Disney World. We did visit Disneyland twice when the kids were really little (we lived out west back then). And we have visited Orlando twice since the kids became teenagers, but those truly enjoyable visits were to Universal Studios - ooooh the dark side :) - and yes, those trips were both in conjunction with Disney cruises. This past March however, we decided that Disney's prices were just a little out of control for our tastes, and we went rogue as a family for the first time and enjoyed RCI's Allure of the Seas Western Caribbean itinerary. Which means that we went from the largest cruise ship currently afloat which holds over 6000 passengers, to the smallest cruise ship we have been on, holding 672 (on this cruise). Almost a factor of 10 difference.

CRUISING HISTORY. Our past cruising history includes:

1996 - Sept - Crown Princess - Alaska (Honeymoon, so no kids)

2004 - Feb - Disney Magic - Eastern Caribbean (DD 6, DS 5 at this point)

2010 - July - Disney Magic - Northern European Capitals with Helsinki

2011 - March - Disney Wonder - Mexican Riviera

2011 - August - Disney Wonder - Alaska

2012 - March - Disney Dream - Bahamas w/ Universal

2013 - March - Disney Fantasy - Eastern Caribbean with San Juan, w/ Universal

2013 - July - Disney Magic - Mediterranean w/ Greece & Turkey (TR on another board)

2014 - March - RCI Allure OTS - Western Caribbean (TR on another board)

In general our philosophy is that cruising is what you make of it. It really is. As a family we enjoy exploring new places and spending time hanging out together. On a cruise watching shows, dressing up for dinner and relaxing in the hot tub are just added bonuses. And although we really enjoy good food, we are definitely not foodies, not sure if that is because the kids and I are Celiacs, but gourmet food tends to be wasted on me. Mealtimes on vacation however are prime times for enjoyable family conversations and interactions.

Our main goal while on vacations is what we would describe as actively relaxing - think 5K walks/runs around the deck followed by serious hot tubbing, swimming, kayaking, climbing monuments (think the lion statues in Trafalgar Square, the Tower of Pisa, the Mayan pyramid at Coba etc), or bike tours, all at a relaxed pace and balanced with reading marathons by the pool. We don't really drink or smoke or gamble or shop (well except for photos or cameras or electronic devices maybe - and world globes, I think I need a 12 step program when it comes to globes :).

Hope to read more! Would love to take this itinerary!

Great start to your review. I'm hooked--can't wait to read more!

Love this...keep it coming!

Very nice, thank you!

Looking forward to reading more.....:):):)

Bob

what? you stopped?! I was going to settle in for a good read. soon please. :)

Enjoying this.

Keith

Great! Can't wait to read more of your adventures.

Cheers.

Great review. More please.:D;):D

Next instalment please, can't wait!

She must be in the hot tub. How else can we explain so long since the last post :)

Love the post, and your attitude about cruising. Fun read.

Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

All I can say is wow! I am glad that so many of you are reading along and thank you for your kind comments and interest in my TR.

Although I have my report mostly written, I am currently struggling with uploading photos to Photobucket - and that will be my nemesis I believe.

My plan is to try and post every day or every second day - but I warn you in advance that we packed so much into Edinburgh in particular, and we loved that stop so much, that it will take a number of posts to cover those two days!

As well, even before we booked this cruise I spent an amazing amount of time planning for the possibility of taking this trip - which equated to a lot of quality time spent on this board reading British Isles cruise reports. Many thanks to Delorean Girl, Touring Tom, Ohhh Bother, Steph27, Ccrain and many others whose trip reports I enjoyed and learned from.

Now back to see if I have had any luck with Photobucket so we can get this trip moving forward.

Booking with Princess. When we first booked our summer British Isles cruise (May 2014), all of the cabins that would hold more than 2 people were gone, so we placed two side by side ocean view cabins on a courtesy hold while we organized vacation time at work. When we called to finalize the booking (within the courtesy hold period) however, we were informed that only one cabin was actually available for us to book and that the other was simply wait listed - this is not what we had originally been told. At this point we were more than a little unhappy, especially when the Princess representative on the phone initially told us that she was sorry about the mistake but that there was nothing that she could do. At that point we insisted on speaking with a supervisor and within 20-30 minutes they offered us two balcony rooms at the same price as the two ocean view rooms we had initially placed on hold. Overall we were not happy with the mix up, but we appreciated that they did manage to sort this out without it costing us more than we were originally willing to pay, especially since this cruise was pretty much fully booked. Although they probably expected us to be impressed with the 'upgrade', this is not a cruise that we would have willingly paid extra for a balcony - I will freely admit however that the really large windows in our cabins (i.e. The doors to the balcony) were very nice.

Another minor problem that we ran into was that although Princess could find my DH in their system from when we sailed on the Crown Princess to Alaska for our honeymoon many years ago, they could not find me - and we had three different Princess reps try to find my info since we called three different times. In the end we faxed them a copy of my boarding card from that trip since I had kept it with my photos and postcards after the cruise as a memento. Luckily I am sentimental that way since they did not seem willing to acknowledge my previous cruise with them otherwise. Honestly although I don't think we really received any great benefit by being Gold members on this trip, (2x the blue Princess bags, but that might be standard for every cabin?), did they think my DH went on our honeymoon without me ? :)

Anyway, finally it was done, even without all of the specific details of DD's travel dates we took a command decision and booked the 11-19 Aug 14 Ocean Princess cruise out of Dover, England. Since we were still awaiting DD's flight dates/times, we decided not to extend our trip in England, but simply fly in arriving in London on 11 Aug and fly home on 19 Aug 14, the day the cruise ended.

Given how late we had booked this cruise, time flew by and before we knew it, we took DD to the airport just the day before we left.

We had booked ourselves an overnight flight on Air Canada that saw us heading for the airport mid-afternoon on 10 Aug 14 for our connecting flight to Toronto. Taking off out of Toronto at the beginning of our 7 hour flight afforded us great views of the August super moon.

Arriving at LHR at roughly 8:35 am in the morning after our very long overnight flight, we breezed through luggage retrieval and customs and emerged into the area outside of security in Terminal 2 where lots of people were holding signs waiting for passengers - but no one was holding a Princess sign. Hmmm.

We headed further out into the main concourse looking for a desk or a kiosk or something. Still nothing. At that point I noticed a desk set up where they were selling SIM cards and queried the ladies there, only to be told that the Princess reps were usually waiting in the line up with all of the other sign holders. I left my boys watching the luggage and doubled back, to now find not one Princess rep, but two of them had arrived, and one of them was even holding a Princess clipboard. It would seem that we breezed through the customs/luggage process faster than had been expected, and we were the first of a group of about a dozen Princess transfer passengers at this terminal. We had time to grab tea and granola bars at a Cafe Nero in the terminal, as well as time for a washroom break as the Princess reps rounded up the rest of the passengers on their list and we all then dutifully followed the reps out to a coach bus. We then proceeded to another couple of terminals until our bus was basically full and then by 10:30 or 11 am at the latest we were on the road to Dover.

At that point I dozed in and out, lulled by the motion of the smooth drive along the M25. And then suddenly the murmuring of the voices of the other passengers was no longer being drowned out by the sounds of the motion of the bus and I woke up trying to figure out what was going on. Our coach had eventually slowed to a complete stop. Here it was, a long long long travel day, topped off with the M25 being turned into a parking lot. We think it was due to an accident, but we never really did find out why. On the positive side, we weren't actually involved in an accident - however it felt like we were on a never ending journey! Luckily though from our perspective, we were using Princess airport transfers, so we were not stressed that the ship would leave without us.

Once we finally got moving again, we ended up "Enjoying" a pit stop at a British roadside rest stop for 45 minutes because the trip had taken so long that the driver had run out of driving hours and was mandated to stop! The rest stop had a couple of small convenience type stores and fast food outlets inside, so it was not like we were wandering around the English countryside. Eventually we arrived in Dover, much closer to 3:30 pm than the 1 pm arrival we had expected. On the positive side, check in was very fast relatively speaking.

Side note: at that point Princess took possession of our passports and issued us with a receipt. After Dublin we were allowed to retrieve our passports at the main Guest Services desk on board.

Next stop after check in was a 'Welcome' photo (that we did not buy because really, we were looking very haggard) and then once onboard we proceeded almost immediately to our cabins to drop off our backpacks etc. We ended up with two cabins on deck 6 aft, 6082 and 6080. They were not connecting, even though the Princess rep on the phone when we booked these cabins had told us they were connecting. It wasn't an issue per se, just something else that had gone a little awry in the Princess booking process.

Checking out our cabins on the first day, we had just opened our balcony door to discover it was wildly windy in Dover, when DS opened up our cabin door and it felt like the wind hit hurricane levels! Possibility of strong winds indeed - we later noticed this was a sign on exterior doors on most decks!

When the papers that flew out the balcony door/window as we tried to drag the curtains back in (!) turned out to be the registration forms/paperwork related to the Teen club - where DS did NOT want to go - DS declared it to be fate :). And although we did walk by the card room/'kids club' area on the first day and picked up a schedule, that was pretty much the last time we were there. We heard later on that it might have been re-opened as a card room a few days later.

Overall, there were 672 passengers on our cruise, of those, 450 were from the US, 61 were British, 4 Irish, 39 Canadians and 51 were French, although more specifically, many of those were part of a really large group from Martinique.

These numbers included roughly 48 kids on our cruise, but only about 22 of them were in the 13-17 demographic. And DS did not end up meeting any of them. Luckily we like each other. Lots. And as we discovered on a regular basis during this trip, DS is a great travelling companion - especially when he is not hungry, tired or sick :).

I have enjoyed your TR's on that other board you mentioned. Since we're Disney sheep ourselves who are prone to straying a bit, I am looking forward to the rest of this TR as well. :D

I have enjoyed your TR's on that other board you mentioned. Since we're Disney sheep ourselves who are prone to straying a bit, I am looking forward to the rest of this TR as well. :D

Glad to have you reading along again. Unlike my Allure - DCL comparison TR, the Ocean Princess is a very unique but enjoyable experience and this TR focuses mainly on the ports we visited. That said, every now and then I will comment on the similarities and the differences between the lines.

More report coming up soon.

The lifeboat drill occurred on time at 4 pm just shortly after we got onboard. Our muster station was the main dining room on deck 5, and yes, we had to bring our life jackets with us and put them on when directed to do so. The process was simple, when we arrived we were shown to a table near the back of the dining room where we sat down. Crew members were stationed throughout the dining room while direction was provided over the intercom system and the crew members demonstrated.

Warning note: DS is a teenager who decided to pull a face EVERY single time we took a selfie! I did warn him at the time that I might use them in a trip report, but that did not seem to stop him from messing with me. Oh well :). It does not help that his sister finds the pictures to be hilarious, which just eggs him on!

Although exiting the dining room was a huge crush of people, the beauty of the small size of the Ocean Princess was that we only had to go up one floor to drop off our life jackets in our cabins.

Checking out the upper deck during sail away (after the Muster drill) it was clear enough to easily see the 'white cliffs of Dover', but so windy and DS was so tired by that point that all he wanted to do was curl up covered up in his hoodie on a deck chair and wait out my photographic efforts.

And speaking of photographic efforts, Princess photographers were up on deck 10 taking sail away photos with the white cliffs of Dover in the background. Granted it was so windy that for most people their photos included their hair flying around like crazy.

Although the Princess Patter indicated that there was supposed to be Sailaway Dancing and Music on decks 9 and 10 Midship, we did not notice it if it was there - perhaps it was moved to the Tahitian Lounge given the strong and cool winds.

Given our very extended travel day, we were so tired after muster drill that finding a bar to purchase an 'Ultimate Soda and More' package was almost more thinking than we were capable of! In the end, although the availability of 'mocktails' sold me, it was the option of creamy hot chocolate that sold my boys.

The cost was $5.95 per person per day plus a 15% gratuity automatically added on, or roughly $55 per person. Although DS and I definitely broke even on our soda/hot chocolate/mock tail consumption, DH might have been ok with just the basic soda package. Well, except that given the not hot temperatures on this cruise DH did enjoy several hot chocolates. And by the way, the hot chocolates were made with Nestles packaged mix BUT they used the heated frothy milk from the expresso machine which somehow made the drinks taste wonderful. DS would like to figure out how to froth the milk at home but given that we don't have an expresso machine I believe that he is out of luck.

Given how tired we were after roughly 24 hours of travel and being awake for over 30 hours (minus catnaps for we parental units on the plane and the bus) making the decision to skip the late seating at the main dining room and eat at the Panorama Buffet was a very easy decision. And even though it was technically self service given the buffet, the service provided by all of the wait staff was fantastic and the food at the buffet was yummy and hit the spot - along with the pop and the frothy hot chocolate :).

Interestingly enough, as we pulled away from Dover, the ship was really moving to the motion of the ocean - apparently we were going to be feeling the effects of Tropical Storm Bertha on this trip, but how much remained to be seen. As a matter of fact, when I stopped in to purchase a pin at the ship's small store, there was a huge line up of passengers buying assorted over the counter meds such as Gravol. I did notice the motion, but did not consider it to be too bad at all. Throughout the cruise there were actually several days or more specifically nights, when the ship was really cutting through the water and the movement of the ocean could be felt more than on some of the bigger ships we have been on. I did not notice anyone being sea sick on this cruise however.

We were so tired that first night that after we ate dinner at the buffet we decided to give the evening entertainment of the Welcome Aboard Show with Cruise Director Peter Roberts, featuring comedy variety David Copperfield & the OceanPrincess Show cast a pass. We wandered around a little, mindlessly checking out the ship and then we went to bed! That night we only let the 'foghorn' in the ventilation system annoy us rather than actually keep us awake all night! What 'foghorn' you ask? Well apparently we had our own personal foghorn in our room, but more to follow on that!

I'm so excited to have found your trip report!

Like you, we are a family of Disney cruisers - #6 coming up next May. And also like you, we will be sailing on the 1 Aug British Isles cruise on the Ocean Princess. This will be our first non-Disney cruise and we are greatly looking forward to it.

Anxiously waiting for your next installment!

Kristen

On our first (and much needed) sea day we slept in. DS had slept for 16 hours straight. DH and I slept for almost as long, or at least we attempted to sleep. There was a noise in our cabin during the night, an off and on noise that sounded at times so much like a fog horn that DH even got up and looked out the balcony door to see if he could locate the source, but no luck. He also tried re-shutting the balcony door as well, just in case it was wind blowing through a door that we had somehow not shut properly, but again we had no luck. So yes, we slept, but it was a broken sleep. And in the morning we were still in a fog since we were so tired.

Noise aside our cabins themselves were quite comfortable. Although they might be ever so slightly smaller than the same style of cabin on the DCL Magic, they were definitely roomy enough for us. There was a divider between our two balconies that looked like it could come down, however after our experience with the 'wind tunnel' we created on the first day, we did not open the the balcony doors again until Milford Haven! So realistically, we would not have willingly paid extra for a balcony for this itinerary, between the cooler temperatures and the wind. That said, the balcony looked like it would have been great in the Med or the Caribbean.

There was lots of storage in the closets for two people. We always carry Eddie Bauer luggage which has a soft side that compacts down and allows it to easily slide under the bed, but DH is unsure whether a normal suitcase would have slid under the bed for storage. Our iPads did fit in the safe (they fit on DCL as well, but not on the Allure OTS). The bathroom was fine, but the shower was really small and, there was a dreaded 'attack curtain' that had me wishing that I had brought clothes pins or plastic clips (like for closing Chip bags) to weigh the curtain down.

Princess was also great about giving us additional room cards to allow us access into the 'other' cabin, especially since I was officially in one cabin with DS while DH was officially in our cabin as a solo cruiser. And I say officially since DH and I don't willingly sleep apart. Side note: DH is now Ruby while I am still Gold, since he got double points for booking a solo cabin.

Eventually hunger overcame sleep and we got up and did breakfast in the dining room. DH really liked his eggs Benedict, but DS and I found limited gluten-free choices that interested us. That's ok, since we made up for it in the buffet later - and for the rest of the cruise.

Speaking of the rest of the cruise, Eighteen. That would be the average temperature in degrees Celsius (64F) for the majority of our trip. At sea it felt slightly cooler than 18 degrees, but in general it meant jeans and t-shirts and light sweaters were our 'cruise casual' attire. Overall we had very little rain and a lot more sun than expected - especially given we were in the British Isles - and that Hurricane Bertha had just barely been downgraded to Tropical Storm Bertha and was hitting parts of the British Isles quite severely. Yes we had rough seas relatively speaking ( I just thought the motion was due to the small size of the ship and the fact that we were in the Northern Atlantic waters - until I read the news reports that is).

Since the ship is so small, it took a lot of laps on the upper walking track to get my steps in on a sea day. A sign by the track indicated that it was 13 laps to one mile, however you probably had to stay as far to the outside as possible to get a mile of walking/ running from only 13 laps! And on sea days in particular it was windy up on the track on deck 10. DS and DH would often join me on my laps - and DS would often get silly! Clearly he missed tormenting his sister as he would race me and chase me and pick me up and cart me around on a regular basis! Goofball!

Hanging out in the library was one of our favourite spots. There were daily sudoku sheets and almost unlimited games (chess, checkers, jenga, scrabble, backgammon, clue, monolopy etc) available.

AND, the library was only one floor up from the Panorama Buffet, which had a bar where we could use our Ultimate Soda and More packages to get all of the pop, hot chocolate and mocktails that we wanted.

And of course tea, coffee and treats were available almost all the time from early morning to late at night. The library was definitely convenient. And very comfortable, and despite its large size it felt very cozy.

DS did show some interest in ping pong which he has never really played before, until he realized that I was better than him at playing, but not good enough to control my shots, so given my competitive nature, DS thought I was trying to whip his butt rather than just reacting wildly to his well placed shots! Realistically it was age and treachery overcoming youth and skill.

Our mid-afternoon 'snack' in lieu of lunch was pizza. Princess is famous for their pizza, and we quickly got to know Marian, the ship's pizza 'chef'. The deal was we needed to give him 24 hours notice when we wanted gluten free pizza. The way things went, I am not sure that we ever actually gave poor Marian 24 hours notice ... But we ate GF pizza almost every day :).

And it was tasty too. Perhaps a little thinner crust wise than I prefer, but it was similar to the regular Princess pizza available (both looks wise and taste wise according to DH who tried both). And we felt taken care of, and not like second class citizens just because we have to be g-free.

Early afternoon on the first sea day found us in the Cabaret Lounge watching the movie 'Jack Ryan Shadow Recruit' on the big screen - the seating system is not graduated however and we discovered later on (when I popped out for munchies) that sitting at the counter on the same level as the bar gives you the best view if you can't get a front row seat.

After the movie we headed straight to the main dining room for afternoon tea. Although the hour scheduled for tea was almost over the service was still impeccable. After we were seated, servers roamed the dining room with pots of steeped tea, with trays of sandwiches, with treats (cookies and squares) and with scones, whipped cream and jam. The only problem with this set up, is that DS and I are gluten-free, which means that we could not eat any of their offerings - DH on the other hand was very happy with the offerings. And we all enjoyed the properly steeped (and hot) tea. Once the servers realized we could not eat what they were offering, they quickly improvised and brought us a couple of jellied desserts, which were ok, but not what we really wanted. Before I left the dining room I informed one of the servers who looked like he was in charge at that point that we would be coming in for afternoon tea on a regular basis and we would appreciate GF scones, although we recognized that this might not be possible.